


The Lie

by Izzy_Grinch



Series: Tired and Tamed [1]
Category: Fables (Willingham) - All Media Types, Fables - Willingham, The Wolf Among Us
Genre: Angst, Drinking to Cope, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Living A Lie, Love/Hate, Or Sort Of, Pre-Slash, Self-Acceptance, a lil bit gory, being a dissapointment, but is quite sick thru the eyes of those who is misunderstood, cause Fabletown is ok thru the eyes of Snow White, dark!Fabletown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 16:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11234820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzy_Grinch/pseuds/Izzy_Grinch
Summary: The fables make the Woodsman a hero who he isn't. The fables make the Wolf a laughing-stock which he has never been. The fables reshape them both just for themselves, because it's easier for Fabletown, because Fabletown has the power, because Fabletown is fabulously fake.





	The Lie

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Ложь](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10964859) by [Izzy_Grinch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzy_Grinch/pseuds/Izzy_Grinch). 



The Woodsman is damn tired. Tired of the fuss and the pointless running from place to place; from there, where no one’s left to wait, to where no one is waiting. He’s tired of the hollow, obsolete hatred, which isn’t worth a shit anymore. Of the endless, empty war, which is being fought only for the demonstrative delimitation of the sides, to show the “goodies” and the “baddies”, while there’s no need in sides at all, and there’re no longer any sides, they all are of the same kind now, stuck on the same slippery bank, and the river’s flow carries not the corpses of their enemies, but their own shed shells, pale and swollen. The flies crawling over the moist eyeballs have no requirement in glamour: the flies are allowed to be hideous, as the corpses − to be, well− dead. The Woodsman can’t die. Not because that’s how it works here, but because he’s a coward. And he’s sick and tired of this cowardice, which he constantly tries to drink away, and wash down, and black out, but all in vain, all’s just getting worse and fouler.

He’s miserable and tired of it. Tired of the contemptuous way the others look at him; and prim their lips, when he appears; and put on their masks of sympathy, saying: “This one’s on the house, Woody,” seeing clearly how miserable he is, knowing perfectly that he’s short on the cash again, and can’t find a job, and is too deep in debt, though is always graciously forgiven for it, because he’s the one who defeated the Big Bad Wolf.

The Woodsman’s tired of this imaginary heroism, owing it to the long arm of coincidence, which once had spurred him on searching for self-profit and satisfaction of his own egoistic, rotten desires. He’s tired of Fabletown making a fucking martyr of him not in the glorious name of justice, for there was no justice in their world, and there will never be justice on these free to the very core lands; they do this only for a chance to blame the Wolf over and over, to hound him, to provoke him to growl gutturally, to ramp hastily, so then they could speak of how inescapable the nature of the beast is; and say casually while filling Woodsman’s glass to the brim that the rapid dogs must be shot down and that he should have stuffed the Wolf’s stomach not with boulders, but with gun powder − and lit it up.

He’s tired of the memories they keep holding on to and making him to do the same, because they simply have nothing else. Tired of falling asleep to fill the half-dead skin with rocks again, and sew the wound roughly, and push the hulking body down into the water, black of blood, and spit out the coarse gray fur.

The Woodsman’s so tired that for the last fifteen minutes he’s just standing in the “Trip Trap” toilet, with his humming forehead pressed to the filthy mirror, and listening to the faucet’s noise dissolving the noise in his skull. His reflection is ugly, his nape is cracking, his mind is twisted. The Woodsman is very, very tired.

When he returns to the bar, there’s Bigby sitting at the counter and looking at him. Not the Wolf with the foaming jaws and the ears laying back, but the unkempt sheriff Bigby, wearing his crumpled tie, the one and only for every occasion. The Woodsman thinks the tie to be some kind of irony, a mockery of those who try to force the Wolf into accepted human rules. However, no one asks the Woodsman for his opinion, and so he holds his tongue.

Holly and Gren − they look at him too, irritatedly and demandingly. They wait for Woody to grab his enchanted axe and mince the Wolf into the pieces so tiny they can fit into the jar for the pickled quail eggs. But at this very moment Bigby is nothing more than just an incarnation of good intentions: he says “hello”, and he curls the corner of his lips, and, who knows, he’d probably wag his tail were it with him. And the worst thing the Woodsman feels to do is ignoring him rather than punching. So he sits, pinned down by the stares − the attentive one, which the well-fed predators use to watch their potential prey; and the two shaming, which are made to shoot someone’s back − and swallows nervously his shitty booze.

He would be glad to see the sheriff going away. Would be glad to get back home, into that flophouse of Toad, fall flat onto the sheetless mattress and lay still until, maybe, the Blue Beard finally wastes all the treasures he stole. However, no one cares for what makes the Woodsman glad. Many believe he was pretty glad to scatter the Wolf’s guts all over around and pull an insidious wench out of them and an ancient hag, who eventually kicked off despite the saving. They have created him, a valiant champion, from just a scratch, and now they grit their teeth, realizing the real picture refuses to meet their image, their unofficial verbal glamour, which belittles his worthlessness luckily if by one third. What a disappointment.

Though Bigby intends to stay. He gets up, and comes closer, and when Grendel, drunk as a skunk, blocks the way, he says that one part of truth which is considered to be the most deceitful one here. He says: “I just want to talk.” And Grendel just wants to fight, because he’s overly offended by life, as he has always been, and by those who open their mouths too wide in his hearing. The Woodsman knows he can’t beat Gren up, if he decides to transform, and he will definitely decide so, he just needs a good reason, and Bigby’s presence is more than enough; that’s why Woody doesn’t step in. Woody counts on Bigby’s conscience, on the fact that, perhaps, he is exhausted after their yesterday scuffle and fed up to the throat with the forthcoming one. He doesn’t count on his status of the town’s sheriff, because the fables don’t give a damn about the lawmen. Such lawmen, at least.

Bigby tells them about the murder and the routine questioning of every person who could have known the victim. He doesn’t claim: “I suspect you’ve gotten into hell of a mess, Woody,” and he doesn’t threaten him with a jail, but still Gren pushes the Wolf away and snaps, hissing that the only murderer is standing right in front of them, while throwing his authority in their mugs. They hurt the Wolf because from year to year they’re trying to prove he’s a total monster, even the mundies scare their children with. Woody hurts the Wolf because he’s generally too angry and possessed with the despair so intense he has nothing to lose at all. And every time the Wolf chokes the man inside and answers with a bite.

Bigby’s eyes flare up.

The Woodsman is tired. The Woodsman is miserable, coward, rude, and if there’s someone screaming behind the door, he prefers to pass by. That one day was a complete mistake. The Woodsman himself is a mistake.

He darts off his seat as if the body still can change its mind, moves snarling Gren aside and very tightly grips the sheriff’s shoulder, explaining it’s better for them to talk outside. It might be the first truly brave action Woody has performed during the entire period of his useless existence. Although he’s ready to retreat immediately, if Bigby starts to jib, or Holly − to goad Gren on, or Gren − to turn into the creature he is, nothing of this happens. It’s like time has stopped for a little while. Without any sight of satisfaction Bigby takes out his cigarettes, heading to the exit.

The Woodsman hesitates. The Woodsman knows that he just crossed that line, which the others have been marking for him so industriously − with the foxfire on this side and the fladry* fence on the other − to make him never trespass it, as if he’s captured in a pixy-ring and has no right to step outside. He peers sorely into the faces of Holly and Gren, because their judgments of his deeds have become so incredibly important − since fucking when − but he doesn’t see anything except for acrimony, and hidden rage, and bitterness, and some failed expectations, which − a little bit of everything − have been saturating him too for all these years. And if he leaves now, there will be no way back.

Bigby's standing in the hoary clouds of smoke, he responds on Woody's request and lends him a pack with the last cigarette. The cheap lighter clicks, and the door shuts behind their backs

**Author's Note:**

> *Fladry is a long rope with red or bright-colored flags and pieces of fabric on it, which flap and shake in the wind. It’s used as a fence for cattle herding mostly, and, as it’s just turned out to me, only in Russia it’s used for the wolf-hunting: the flags mark the territory, where the wolves would run from one rope to another, scared of flapping, while the hunters surround them.


End file.
